A member of the faculty of Florida State University won a career prize at the start of a career of an international psychological organization for his research on the way people perceive or deal with threats.
David March, assistant professor at Department of Psychologyreceived a Rising Star Prize from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) this spring alongside 56 other psychologists around the world for their innovative research, which has already led to progress in the field of psychology.
“Being recognized international by APS is particularly satisfactory because it means that my research has a large attraction,” said March. “This price strengthens my conviction that my research can be largely influential inside and outside the field of social psychology.”
APS is an international non -profit organization that aims to promote and advance the interests of scientific research in psychology, disseminate psychological sciences to the public and promote the application of psychological sciences in public policy.
“My research focuses on ways in which threats uniquely influence the way people perceive information, how they store information and how they express this information,” said March. “My own research and the work of the Mars research laboratory explore how an individual’s expression of this information manifests itself in a wide variety of interesting phenomena, such as biases and fears.”
“A part of my success is accredited in the environment that has been fomented here at the FSU and in the FSU psychology department.”
– David March, deputy professor in the department of psychology
Much of the Mars’s search comes from a project he has developed during his higher education, examining how processes that often work outside our conscience influence attitudes that stimulate behavior. While obtaining his doctorate at the University of Tennessee in 2019, March developed a theoretical model which challenged the models of existing double process evaluation, which focused on valence, or the range of positive or negative values associated with a stimulus. The new model of double implicit treatment that has created has concentrated on the discovery of a distinction between the influence of negativity and threat in specific situations rather than a close emphasis on perceived positivity or negativity.
“As a graduate student, I have noticed several phenomena in different negativity which, in my opinion, could more specifically be explained by the threat instead of negative valence,” said March. “I wanted to clarify the influence of threats beyond negativity by distinguishing that, although threats are always negative, all negative things do not threaten.”
Each year since the association’s establishment in 1988, APS has given the Rising Star Prize to exceptional APS members in the early stages of their research careers. Important publications, major discoveries and large impacts are some of the criteria considered by the APs in the selection of rising stars.
“A part of my success is accredited in the environment which was fomented here at the FSU and in the department of Psychology of the FSU,” said March, who joined the Faculty of FSU in 2019. “The faculty is fantastic and was very favorable to my research, and this environment is very useful in terms of productive stay. FSU is an ideal place to be a member of the Faculty.”
Brad Schmidt, president of the department of psychology and eminent research professor of psychology, saw March’s contributions to the progress of psychological theory on first -hand social cognition.
“David is a remarkable young scholar who does important work in social psychology,” said Schmidt. “The Rising Star Prix of the Association for Psychological Science is one of the best international prices in psychology, it is therefore an incredible honor and recognition of the impact of David on the ground.”
To learn more about the work and research of March conducted in the FSU psychology department, visit Psychology.fsu.edu.